Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

[Tywyll]

I remember in 4th Ed when HA cost 3 pts per d6. At the time this seemed like a good deal, but then I wasn't thinking of it as "limited Strength". In 5th ed I've been building some frameworks and characters with HA. And its bothered me. Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, but it seems to me to be over priced, or at least the limitation "hand attack" is undervalued.

 

This stems mostly from the "no figured characteristics" costing the same. So for the same point value, you can buy strength that is good for not only doing damage, but also lifting things, escaping grabs and holds, and anything else that strength is good for, but HA is not. Shouldn't HA limitation cost like -3/4 or -1 considering everything you lose?

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

This has been discussed before, but to a certain extent, I agree. I think I'd allow it in a Superheroic campaign. In a Heroic, with NCM, Strength quickly becomes 10 points per 1d6 of damage. Even with "No Figured Characteristics", that's still 7, which is twice the 3 of 1d6 for HA. And you can buy a LOT of HA in some games. Especially with other lims - a +5d6 HA, Only Against Humanoids (-1/2) only costs 12 points.

[Agent333]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

I came to the same conclusion about HA and what really distinguishes, as far I can tell, is whether it can be allowed in a Framework or not. HA can fit anywhere, but a characterisitc has certain limitations about where it can be placed (This is my understanding, If I'm wrong please correct me).

 

Myself, I put HA in Frameworks and I buy limited Strength outside framworks like this: STR +10; No Figured (-1/2), Damage Only (-1/4). I sure to be wrong, but the "Non-persistent" (-1/4) limitation may be applicable here as well, lowering the cost by a full HALF. IMO that would be just too cheap.

[Tywyll]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

Lowering the cost by half would be decreasing the cost to 2.5 rather than 3 per die. That doesn't seem that great of a discount.

 

I mean, +4d6 HA costs 13 pts versus reducing it by half which would make it cost 10.

 

It just seems that limited strength is a better way to go, at this price.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

The fact of the matter is that STR in Hero is vastly undercosted... therefore any "power" that is built based on Limited STR is even more undercosted.

 

Hand Attack... like Hand Killing Attack... is one of the most broken powers (balance wise) of any in Hero.

 

Hand Attack should be built on the same basis as any other attack... 1d6 per 5 pts... no range offset by "adds to STR" That would be a fair price. As it is, HA is vastly undercosted, and the ultimate munchkin power... next to STR itself.

 

Yes... technically all of what you have said above is correct... but it is also that you have found the biggest bah-roken issue in the game... so while you can justify all kinds of insanely cheap high dice attack... it is fundamentally flawed... and an abuse of a game balance issue.

 

STR should be 2 points per die to make it appropriately costed. But that aside... no "power" should be built with the concept of being based on a Characteristic. Powers should be built based on the core Hero facet of 5 pts. per 1d6. That is balanced... the other is actually a loop hole in the system.

 

Abuse it all you want... but IMO, this is the ultimate munchkin design, and you'd be disallowed in my games.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

Hand Attack should be built on the same basis as any other attack... 1d6 per 5 pts... no range offset by "adds to STR" That would be a fair price.

 

On the positive side, this is exactly how HKA and RKA work - one has range, the other adds STR damage (with a cap, no less) and they cost the same per die.

 

On the negative side, this would encourage a "limited STR" construct even more. Que sera.

 

One theory espoused for STR and CON is that these are the "brick frameworks". Perhaps a better solution would be to re-cost STR and CON to higher values, factoring in the cost of the figured characteristics they grant, and all other freebies they make available, re-price "no figured" on a stat by stat basis (it should be worth -1 for BOD, for example, which grants 1 point of STUN per 2 points spent), and relax the rulkes for purchasing characteristics in frameworks.

 

Then, the bricks would have the same cost-saving mechanism available to the EP, not the quasi-framework provided by figured characteristics, and the HA pricing dilemma would be alleviated, if not eliminated.

 

EDIT: That would solve the issue for Champions, I expect. I'm not so sure about heroic campaigns, where it wuld make exceeding the NCM even less desirable.

[Alibear]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

Bricks with 350 points to spend can afford an MP anyway. Lots of bricks have the old Brick Tricks MP as well as an MP which helps with the SFX of the character.

[OddHat]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

On the positive side, this is exactly how HKA and RKA work - one has range, the other adds STR damage (with a cap, no less) and they cost the same per die.

 

On the negative side, this would encourage a "limited STR" construct even more. Que sera.

 

One theory espoused for STR and CON is that these are the "brick frameworks". Perhaps a better solution would be to re-cost STR and CON to higher values, factoring in the cost of the figured characteristics they grant, and all other freebies they make available, re-price "no figured" opn a stat by stat basis (it should be worth -1 for BOD, for example, which transt 1 point of STUN per 2 points spent), and relax the rulkes for purchasing characteristics in frameworks.

 

Then, the bricks would have the same cost-saving mechanism available to the EP, not the quasi-framework provided by figured characteristics, and the HA pricing dilemma would be alleviated, if not eliminated.

 

EDIT: That wuld solve the issue for Champions, I expect. I'm not so sure about heroic campaigns, where it wuld make exceeding the NCM even less desirable.

 

Good idea, and repped.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

On the positive side' date=' this is exactly how HKA and RKA work - one has range, the other adds STR damage (with a cap, no less) and they cost the same per die.[/quote']

 

True, but takes us down the "Killing Attacks are undercosted for their effect" route of many other threads... no need to go into that here.

 

On the negative side, this would encourage a "limited STR" construct even more. Que sera.

 

One theory espoused for STR and CON is that these are the "brick frameworks". Perhaps a better solution would be to re-cost STR and CON to higher values, factoring in the cost of the figured characteristics they grant, and all other freebies they make available, re-price "no figured" opn a stat by stat basis (it should be worth -1 for BOD, for example, which transt 1 point of STUN per 2 points spent), and relax the rulkes for purchasing characteristics in frameworks.

 

Then, the bricks would have the same cost-saving mechanism available to the EP, not the quasi-framework provided by figured characteristics, and the HA pricing dilemma would be alleviated, if not eliminated.

 

EDIT: That wuld solve the issue for Champions, I expect. I'm not so sure about heroic campaigns, where it wuld make exceeding the NCM even less desirable.

 

Yeah... these ideas have been posted before by you and me and many others. I'd love to see a true 6th Edition that recosted Characteristics appropriately... either raising some costs... or doing away with Figured Chars... or both. Then reconfigure powers to be more consistent, with a majore caveat that "build powers based on the power model, not the characteristic model" as the intended method... which would still let gamers do whatever they want. Just seems to me that some of the break points in Hero come where Chars and Powers overlap or interact. This could be cleaned up quite a bit without changing any core mechanics. In fact, it would eliminate some unnecessary kludge from the system... IMO.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

you guys talk to much about limitations and discounts and cheap prices imho. Just increase the points for the game and points of characters. Theres no limit to how powerful these superhero characters can be. I once played a game where we were Heralds of Galactus starting out at 1500 points. We would go to alien planets and neutralize any threats so galactus could eat it. Was alot of fun.

[Guest Gadfly]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

To be fair, there are mechanical differences between the Hand-To-Hand Attack Limitation and Strength with No Figured Characteristics, which can be advantageous to someone using the former. I'm thinking specifically of the rules for adding damage: if the HA is Advantaged, you can add STR up to double the base damage of the HA including all its Advantages, without having to have those Advantages on your own STR or to prorate your STR to account for the ones on the HA. E.g. a character with 15 STR and a 3d6 HA, Armor Piercing, could do up to 6d6 AP.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

What is "No figured characteristics" and since when did the dmg of the power have a max = to dbl the dice in it? I thought that was only for items. Like if you have a 2D6 HKA AP+1/2 Greatsword, with strength and martial arts DC's and levels and manuever bonus's, the most dmg you can do with that weapon is 4D6HKA. But with powers, say like Vampire Claws that are 2D6 HKA. If my strength is 45 my damage with claws is 5D6.

[Tae Kwon Dan]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

you guys talk to much about limitations and discounts and cheap prices imho. Just increase the points for the game and points of characters. .

 

Uhm, huh? I fail to see how this even applies. If something is undervalued, giving out more points doesn't really help the problem. Unless you're talking about how much the game starts to go ka-flooey at upper levels anyway and you just won't notice that things are underpowered.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

Uhm, huh? I fail to see how this even applies. If something is undervalued, giving out more points doesn't really help the problem. Unless you're talking about how much the game starts to go ka-flooey at upper levels anyway and you just won't notice that things are underpowered.

 

The first 3 postsers are discussing that the price of HA is more costly then they think it should be. I'm saying 3pts for 1D6 isn't costly at all, it actually cheap. If they agree it is costly then they shouldn't be afraid to dish out more exp and not worry about so many limitations to decrease costs.

[Tae Kwon Dan]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

They're not complaining about the 3 pts, they are complaining that in 5th edition HA is now 5 pts per d6. Besides even if 3 pts is too expensive the answer should never be just give out more CP's to build with. That's ignoring the problem and leads to overall poor game design.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

They're not complaining about the 3 pts, they are complaining that in 5th edition HA is now 5 pts per d6. Besides even if 3 pts is too expensive the answer should never be just give out more CP's to build with. That's ignoring the problem and leads to overall poor game design.

 

How? Especially the last sentance. If your giving 1-3pts per game your super hero's aren't gonna be able to afford abilities unless a year of our lives goe's by. I use GM points and Player points. And base those points on the characters overall point total. If one player has a 1000pt character, he's gonna get up to 5pts for him to spend and 5 that I spend on his character. A 75 pt character could get like 2 and 2 respectively.

[Tae Kwon Dan]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

It leads to poor game design by not being a solution at all to the actual problem. Let's say I have a broken arm that I haven't gotten set the medical equivalent of your more points solution is to up my dosage of pain killers and leave the arm broken. You're hiding the problem instead of fixing it.

 

If a power is over or under costed then we need to look at the cost of the power not the point totals used for characters. For one thing raising and lowering point totals unfairly rewards or punishes characters not using the problem power\characteristic.

 

Look at RDU Neils' well thought out argument on STR being underpriced. Sure he could "fix" the brick by making everybody build their characters on 200 points, but now the blaster and the mentalist got punished for something that wasn't even their fault. And in all honesty the problem would still be there just on a smaller scale since everybody else's powers scaled at a different level than yours anyway.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

Not at all man. You dont just give one player more points, give them all. This is the game system we play, and I've played ALOT of systems. This is by far the best and most detailed. In fact its so detailed is why its not Blasting D&D off the shelves and shutting them down. GM's take a look at the game system and see to much work they have to do. To much reading/math/memorizing. This sort of thing you can't change unless you just want to. I mean after all YOU are the GM so if you dont like the 5thED 1D6 HA for 5 pts then just MAKE it 1D6 for 3 pts. I dont have a 5th ED book so I dont know the changes but thats definately one I dont like. Especially for SuperHero. You have charcters running around with 40pd/ed of total defenses and possibly dmg reduction, how are you supposed to do any damage with a HA if it costs 5pts per. So increase the exp your players get if you only give them 1-2 pts a game so they can get these abilities. Don't be afraid of points, theres nothing wrong with them. I saw one guy post he started a game at 75pts and a year and half later they are 350pts. That averages 3.5 pts a game. OMG that blows. Crank up your points son! Just cause they are normal doesn't mean they are limited. Characters can be blessed by gods and stumble upon artifact books that "awaken" the mind. They can catch unknown disease that alter their genetics etc...

[incrdbil]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

To be fair' date=' there are mechanical differences between the Hand-To-Hand Attack Limitation and Strength with No Figured Characteristics, which can be advantageous to someone using the former. I'm thinking specifically of the rules for adding damage: if the HA is Advantaged, you can add STR up to double the base damage of the HA including all its Advantages, without having to have those Advantages on your own STR or to prorate your STR to account for the ones on the HA. E.g. a character with 15 STR and a 3d6 HA, Armor Piercing, could do up to 6d6 AP.[/quote']

 

Nice observation Gadfly--I'm quoting it again to emphasize it among as the thread moves to the 'rush to quibbble' mode.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

What is "No figured characteristics"

 

"No Figured Characteristics" is a -1/2 limitation you can place on any stat which otherwise p[rovides figured characteristics (STR, CON, DEX and BOD). The stat then provides no figured characteristics.

 

and since when did the dmg of the power have a max = to dbl the dice in it?

 

Since 2nd Edition back in about 1983 (could be off by a year). In 1st Ed, STR could add any amount to a HKA. In 2nd Ed, and ever since, it's been restricted to the base HKA dice.

 

This rule does not apply to hand attacks, but does apply to advantaged hand attacks. If I have a 3d6 AP HA, and a 45 STR, I can use 15 STR to add 3d6 and do a 6d6 AP HA, or I can add 9d6 and do a sraight 12d6 HA.

 

Why? Well, perhaps because a Multipower of 1d6 HA's with various advantages for a 75 STR brick might otherwise be overpowered.

 

I thought that was only for items. Like if you have a 2D6 HKA AP+1/2 Greatsword' date=' with strength and martial arts DC's and levels and manuever bonus's, the most dmg you can do with that weapon is 4D6HKA. But with powers, say like Vampire Claws that are 2D6 HKA. If my strength is 45 my damage with claws is 5D6.[/quote]

 

I believe in Heroic campaigns, the cap applies to items which do norma;l damage, as well as those which do killing damage. If you want a sample character with a natural KA who suffers from this restriction, see if you can find a copy of the Monster. In 1e, he had a 1d6 KA (5d6 + 1 w/ STR). After that, he had a 1d6 KA (2d6 w/ STR).

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

To the question of 5/1.5 per die or 3 per die, I like 5/1.5, as it solves the active point dilemma. A 60 AP power does 12 damage classes, except HA which does 20d6. Keeping HA at the same damage class per AP solves some Multipower and similar problems quite nicely.

[Darkhope]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

so a super brick with 40 str and "no figured characteristics" has 0 pd? That is uhh... lame. I wouldn't allow that unless it was a rare power or ability. I've heard of adds to characteristics for +1/4. Like when you get 20pts of growth and have the "adds to characteristics +1/4" advantage the +20str will add to the pd and stun values.

 

As for a super with a multipower of 1D6HKA's with different advantages, thats just abusing the system. Its up to the GM to use common sense and say no that doesn't work. I see no reason for a cap on POWER based attacks as long as it doesn't abuse the system. A mutant with 75 str and a 1D6 HKA is ok, but an entire framework, nope dont think so. And since its a mutant power that power will be worked on and improved. If he wants more damage he gets another Dice.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

They're not complaining about the 3 pts' date=' they are complaining that in 5th edition HA is now 5 pts per d6. Besides even if 3 pts is too expensive the answer should [b']never[/b] be just give out more CP's to build with. That's ignoring the problem and leads to overall poor game design.

 

A) Actually, in 5th, HA is 3 points per d6 - 5 with a mandatory -1/2 limitation.

 

I completely agree. The answer should never be more character points. Never. The game should be just as balanced for a character who has 25 points as it should be with 250 or higher. Especially with Horror HERO on the docket - I think we'll be seeing more "normals" campaigns.

[Tywyll]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

The fact of the matter is that STR in Hero is vastly undercosted... therefore any "power" that is built based on Limited STR is even more undercosted.

 

Hand Attack... like Hand Killing Attack... is one of the most broken powers (balance wise) of any in Hero.

 

Hand Attack should be built on the same basis as any other attack... 1d6 per 5 pts... no range offset by "adds to STR" That would be a fair price. As it is, HA is vastly undercosted, and the ultimate munchkin power... next to STR itself.

 

Yes... technically all of what you have said above is correct... but it is also that you have found the biggest bah-roken issue in the game... so while you can justify all kinds of insanely cheap high dice attack... it is fundamentally flawed... and an abuse of a game balance issue.

 

STR should be 2 points per die to make it appropriately costed. But that aside... no "power" should be built with the concept of being based on a Characteristic. Powers should be built based on the core Hero facet of 5 pts. per 1d6. That is balanced... the other is actually a loop hole in the system.

 

Abuse it all you want... but IMO, this is the ultimate munchkin design, and you'd be disallowed in my games.

 

 

While I appreciate that you /think/ that STR is the "most broken" element of the game, that doesn't make it so. Some people think so, some people don't. And in 5 Editions they haven't changed it yet. So obviously the designers don't necessarily agree.

 

I especially disagree that Powers should or shouldn't be built on a Characteristic versus a "core concept" (mechanic actually). They should be built on the character concept. Its funny you choose one "core concept" to champion while ignoring others.

 

Personally I think Str is so cheap because in comics its probably the most common of all powers. But, I wasn't there when the rules were concieved, so who knows.

 

Back to what I was saying... the question I was asking was about the system as it is written and looking for some understanding behind why it may or may not be that way that perhaps I have missed. My goal isn't creating broken powers (all Hero games I am involved in are as a GM), and I don't really appreciate the implication that I'm a munchkin.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Hand to Hand Attack Over Priced?

 

And multi-powers with a 1d6 HKA with different advantages are wholly plausible and acceptable in my book, although depending on the number of slots in the MP I might make the character just get a 1d6 HKA with the "Variable Advantages" advantage.